シャドーイング練習: Is a four-day week the future of work? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service - YouTubeで英語スピーキングを学ぶ
C1
If you look at what the World Health Organization says,
276 文
文が短すぎたり長すぎる場合は、Editをタップして調整してください。
1
If you look at what the World Health Organization says,
2
regularly working long hours raises the risk of stroke,
3
of heart disease and even premature death.
4
Japan, for example, has such a strong culture of overwork that they even have a term for death by overwork.
5
Hey, I'm Hannah and this is What's in the World,
6
the podcast for all of your news,
7
trends and talking points from the BBC World Service.
8
What if every week we could have three mornings of lions instead of two.
9
The four-day work week is being trialled across the world
10
and for some people it feels like they're finally hitting snooze on the burnout.
11
A recent study found that people who work four days instead of five say
12
that they feel more productive and they feel better and happier working fewer hours.
13
But does this actually work in practice for every type of job and in every culture?
14
And if the results are so clear then why aren't we doing it already?
15
Well here in the studio Here with me to break this down is the BBC's global health reporter, Sophia Betteazer.
16
Hello, welcome.
17
Hi.
18
Why do we even work five days in the first place?
19
Something that a lot of people are probably asking.
20
It just feels like a routine that we've got ourselves into.
21
Yeah, and a lot of people don't question it, right?
22
But it's sort of only been the case for the last 100 years.
23
Before that, people actually used to work six or even seven days a week.
24
So yeah, it was worse.
25
So what happened is that at the beginning of the 20th century,
26
factory workers started started demanding shorter hours.
27
And that's how the five day week came about.
28
And it was then popularised by big companies like Ford,
29
which actually realised that if they gave people two days off,
30
they would come back more productive.
31
But if you think about it,
32
100 years ago, we were a society mostly based on agriculture,
33
on factory workers, and things have changed massively.
34
And yet working hours have stayed essentially the same.
35
That's really interesting.
36
If there can be change from seven or six to five,
37
then maybe there can actually be change from five to four.
38
And you have been speaking to researchers and campaigners who have been trying to make this happen.
39
And there have been all of these trials.
40
How did they work?
41
The four day week is based on a principle that's called 100-80-100.
42
So what that means is that you work for 100% of the pay,
43
but only 80% of the time,
44
as long as you keep up 100% of your productivity, right?
45
And the key here is that it's not about crumbing in five days worth of work into four.
46
So it's not about doing really long hours.
47
And actually, what's interesting is that research says that that's actually got,
48
that has the opposite effect.
49
So that makes, that leads to stress, to burnout.
50
So it's not about that.
51
It's about working smarter and cutting waste.
52
So, for example, shorter meetings,
53
fewer meetings, better use of technology.
54
And what campaigners for the four-day week are saying is that with AI now automating a lot of our tasks,
55
this is a really good time.
56
And now more than ever,
57
it is really possible to achieve that 180-100 goal.
58
And there was a study into this.
59
What did they find?
60
So the study is the biggest of its kind.
61
So essentially researchers from Boston College looked at 141 companies that decided to trial the four day week.
62
And they looked, so this was across multiple countries,
63
the US, Canada, the UK,
64
Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
65
And what they looked at is four components.
66
They looked at job satisfaction,
67
burnout, physical health and mental health.
68
And they found that overwhelmingly,
69
people reported being happier, being more satisfied
70
and being sort of more better at their jobs when they switched to a four day week.
71
And what's interesting is that the trial is over now,
72
but about 90% of the people that took part decided to keep doing it.
73
And the companies let them.
74
Yeah.
75
That's amazing.
76
Because I would have thought that was one of the big barriers to this.
77
Bosses wanting things, not wanting change, shall we say.
78
But the countries you mentioned,
79
first of all, they're all Western countries.
80
Something we should probably talk about a little bit.
81
And the second thing is that in this study, it was self-reported, right?
82
So people might have just said that they were just as productive because,
83
to be honest, everyone...
84
What would you say, right?
85
I would like a four-day work week.
86
I'm really productive.
87
If I could do five episodes of the podcast in four days,
88
just give me a chance.
89
Well, that's the thing.
90
The results the research has got came from employees.
91
So there is a chance that they might have exaggerated the benefits because they wanted that extra day off.
92
And honestly, I mean, I don't blame them.
93
Right.
94
And then the other thing is that all the companies that took part in the trial,
95
they did it voluntarily.
96
So I think when you talk about a barrier being bosses who are skeptical,
97
clearly they were already kind of open minded and thinking about this idea.
98
And then the other thing,
99
as you said precisely, this sort of trial took part only in Western countries.
100
So it doesn't really take into account how developed a country is or what work culture looks like in that country.
101
For example, if you take Africa,
102
a lot of people in many African countries work in the informal sector in mining.
103
And so, I mean, they're nowhere near this sort of conversation.
104
Were all of the companies that trialled this out,
105
were they kind of standard office jobs, quite flexible ones?
106
Really, it was mostly office jobs,
107
but it was also restaurants,
108
for example, or care sectors.
109
It was a bit of a mix,
110
but it is easier to implement this in an office job.
111
The size of a company also matters.
112
So, for example, a startup that employs 20 people,
113
for them it's a lot easier to decide to try and work four days a week.
114
But if you've got a big corporation with offices around the world,
115
different departments, different time zones,
116
a bit like the BBC,
117
it's really difficult and it will definitely not look the same for everybody.
118
So there are limitations to this.
119
You've been speaking to people in the companies that have done some of these trials.
120
What do they say?
121
How do they find it?
122
Yes, I wanted to speak to some employers who kind of said to me that they implemented it and it worked.
123
And I spoke to Chau,
124
who is from South Africa and runs a counselling centre in Cape Town.
125
And he said that for him,
126
implementing the four-day week was like it changed everything.
127
He was managing a staff of 56 people,
128
psychologists who worked at a university of 30,000 people.
129
They were severely burned out.
130
They were calling in sick all the time.
131
They found it really difficult because,
132
I mean, South Africa is one of the countries that ranks at the bottom when it comes to mental health.
133
So they were constantly exposed to other people's trauma.
134
and you know, they were really struggling.
135
So he decided to implement a four day week.
136
And interestingly, he got a lot of pushback from his employees.
137
They said, well, this is never going to work.
138
Yeah, they were like, this is great in theory,
139
but it's never going to work.
140
But he said that he did and that the results were phenomenal.
141
So he said that in the year before the trial,
142
the team logged 51 sick days.
143
And in the year of the four-day work week,
144
that dropped to just four.
145
And he said that people had more time to themselves,
146
so they were healthier, they were happier.
147
But he said they were also better at their jobs
148
because they were more focused and they showed a lot more empathy in the therapy sessions.
149
Were there any companies from the trials that said we tried it out, it didn't work?
150
Well, 10% of the companies in the trial decided not to implement it.
151
So that's a minority, but that number is still there.
152
And it does happen.
153
One example is Microsoft.
154
So in 2019, Microsoft in Japan implemented a four-day workweek as a trial.
155
And the results were really positive.
156
And in fact, productivity did not drop at all.
157
but they still decided to bring back the five day week.
158
So, you know, it is a long process.
159
How would it work in a restaurant or a healthcare job?
160
It's really hard and campaigners admit that that's one of the big limitations.
161
So a hospital, for example,
162
you can't just shut down a hospital for three days,
163
but it doesn't mean it's impossible.
164
So instead of maybe doing four days a week,
165
it's about doing short hours or readjusting how you do shift work.
166
So it is possible.
167
Because shift work is one of the things that leads to massive burnout, isn't it?
168
I mean, actually, I think there are studies that show that the way we work isn't actually very good for us.
169
Yeah, so there's a solid body of research that shows that if you work long hours,
170
that's really bad for your health.
171
It leads to stress, anxiety,
172
burnout, but it's more than that.
173
So if you look at what the World Health Organization says,
174
they say that regularly working long hours raises the risk of stroke,
175
of heart disease and even premature death.
176
And that's what campaigners for the four day week say.
177
They say that the way that we work now,
178
five days out of seven is actually bad for our health.
179
And that, you know, when we have more time to ourselves,
180
we are more physically active,
181
we spend more time with our family, with our friends.
182
And so when we go back to work,
183
we are more focused, we are more energized.
184
So it's not only better for our health but it actually makes us better at our jobs they say.
185
They say.
186
Around the world people work in very different ways
187
and in China I was reading about the 996 which is people working from 9am till 9pm six days a week.
188
I mean there are cultures that have it a lot worse off.
189
Yeah and I think that's a really interesting point
190
because all the experts I spoke to said
191
that cultural difference is actually the biggest barrier to this because they're so deeply ingrained into who we are,
192
how we grew up, where we live.
193
So China, the 996 culture,
194
that means people, most people work from 9am to 9pm,
195
six days a week.
196
You've got Japan, for example.
197
So Japan has such a strong culture of overwork that they even have a term for death by overwork.
198
Death by, people die from overwork.
199
I mean, I think around the world it happens,
200
but I think Japan just documents it.
201
So it's not that it happens just in Japan and that's haroshi.
202
People come in early, leave late,
203
even if they have nothing to do.
204
It's just how it is.
205
And there are all sorts of benefits that people are not even taking because it looks bad.
206
So for example, men in Japan are allowed one year paternity leave,
207
which is very general.
208
Most of them don't take it because it looks bad.
209
There are some countries that already have fewer working hours,
210
shorter working hours like France.
211
I mean they brought that in years ago.
212
Yeah and interestingly trials for the four-day week are happening or have happened across the world.
213
Not just in places like France or Germany or Spain but Botswana,
214
the Dominican Republic, Brazil, South Africa.
215
So there's definitely an interest in that.
216
So if you take Iceland,
217
that's a really good example.
218
In Iceland now 90% of workers have a right to a shorter work week.
219
What about the money though?
220
Businesses might say that having people working a few hours makes them less money.
221
Yes and I think especially in kind of lower level jobs,
222
I was talking about mining earlier,
223
evidence shows that employers like their priority is not really workers well-being,
224
is sort of getting as much as they can out of their employees.
225
So that's a different conversation.
226
You could argue that when people work less, they are more productive.
227
There is some evidence that says that you can be even more productive.
228
But yeah, that's another limitation.
229
In a customer-facing role, for example,
230
say you work in a supermarket or you're a taxi driver,
231
if you work fewer hours,
232
you literally have fewer customers and then you actually bring in less money.
233
That's a pretty strong argument, isn't it?
234
Yeah, I think if you're self-employed, absolutely.
235
Oh, if you're self-employed, yeah,
236
that would be really, really tricky to implement.
237
I mean, it would take quite a lot of self-control, wouldn't it?
238
Yeah, it's definitely not a one size fits all.
239
It isn't.
240
I'm really interested in how this conversation is happening now because,
241
gosh, not that long ago was the dreaded COVID pandemic and that changed things for all of us.
242
I mean, there was, you know,
243
the Zoom meetings and working from home.
244
And now we've got this massive cultural shift that is AI
245
and people who are joining the workforce for the first time
246
or who joined in the last few years they have very different expectations and priorities.
247
Absolutely.
248
Younger people are questioning more and more the nine to five office-based work model.
249
They have completely different priorities and ideas about what work means and what sort of the purpose of work should be.
250
So for them, what's top of the agenda is work-life balance.
251
You know, across the world,
252
one of the first questions
253
that Gen Z job seekers ask is what the working hours are and whether there's options to do remote work.
254
So that's a really interesting shift.
255
And in Japan, you know,
256
we were talking about Japan and how the culture of overwork is deeply ingrained.
257
Now, younger men are taking paternity leave more,
258
so about 30%, which is still quite low.
259
But if you think about the fact that it used to be zero a few years ago,
260
so there is a change there.
261
And what's interesting though to me is that it's not just younger workers.
262
There was this global study that came out earlier this year,
263
which showed that for the first time ever,
264
work-life balance outranks pay when it comes to sort of what the top priority for your job should be.
265
And that's not just Gen Z,
266
it's millennials, it's boomers, it's Gen X.
267
So we are, I think,
268
seeing a change across generations when it comes to what people think their priorities should be when it comes to their careers.
269
Sophia, thank you so much.
270
Thanks for having me.
271
That's it from me today.
272
But if you like this episode,
273
please do subscribe and share and check out some of our other episodes.
274
I'm Hannah.
275
This is What in the World from the BBC World Service.
276
We'll see you next time.
アプリをダウンロード
話したすべての文をAIが採点
TRENDING
人気動画
このレッスンについて
このレッスンでは、英語のビデオトランスクリプトに基づき、仕事の未来としての四日間勤務の可能性について学びます。具体的には、過重労働の健康への影響、四日間勤務の試みとそのメリット、そしてこの変化が実際にどのように実現できるのかを探ります。この議題を通じて、英語のリスニング能力、スピーキング能力を向上させ、自然な発音やイントネーションを身につけることができます。
重要な語彙とフレーズ
- 過重労働 - 仕事をしすぎること。
- 生産性 - 労働や作業の効率。
- 試験 - 試み、実験。
- 健康リスク - 健康に対する危険。
- バーンアウト - 精神的・肉体的疲労。
- 文化 - 人々の生活や習慣。
練習のコツ
このビデオのスピードとトーンに合わせて影響的な発音を練習するためには、shadowingが非常に有効です。YouTubeで英語学習をする際には、最初にビデオを視聴し、発音の特徴やリズムに注意を払います。その後、shadowspeakを利用して、をビデオの音声に合わせて自分の声を重ねてみてください。この方法は、英語の発音を良くするだけでなく、スピーキング練習にも役立ちます。
プラクティスセッションの際には、最初は短いフレーズから始め、徐々に長い文に挑戦していくと良いでしょう。特に、感情やトーンを意識しながら話すことで、より自然なスピーキング能力を身につけることができます。定期的に練習を重ねることで、英語のスピーキング技術を向上させ、英語スピーキング練習に効果的です。
シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由
シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。